Dementia work to be shared across board

Published:12:00Thursday 29 May 2014

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A member of staff from Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust spoke at a national conference about the Trust’s work with dementia patients.

Jo Blofeld, Patient and Public Involvement Lead at Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust presented to a room of over 300 delegates at the recent National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) conference and took took part in a panel discussion which looked at how valuable out of hospital care is and the importance of maintaining contact between community and hospital services.

Jo also discussed her work with patients who have received a diagnosis of dementia and how talking to them and their families and carers about their experiences has helped the team improve services which are tailored to their needs.

Jo’s discussion focused on Pam who has vascular dementia and works as a Meet and Greet volunteer with the Memory Assessment Service in Lancaster who made the courageous decision to not let her diagnosis affect her life.

A video was played of Pam discussing life after her diagnosis and her experiences and achievements.

Jo said: “It was such an honour to be able to present at the conference and share our achievements.

“Unfortunately Pam was unable to attend in person so we used a video of her talking about her experiences and how she is using these to help others so her story could still be included on the day.

“At the end of the section, I was approached by several organisations who asked if we could share our learning with them as well as Pam’s story to help their patients as it was felt it could help some patient’s realise there is ‘life after diagnosis’.”